Spiritual Meaning Of Bronchitis

Bronchitis is an inflammation of the bronchi. It is classified as a lower airway disease and is often accompanied by some degree of bronchoconstriction. It is partly caused by inflammation and partly by infection with viruses, bacteria or fungus. Bronchitis is associated with:

Bronchitis is a respiratory disease that causes inflammation and irritation in one or both of the bronchi, the main air passages in your lungs. Bronchitis can be acute (short-term) or chronic (long-lasting). Acute bronchitis most often lasts for several weeks but can last much longer. Chronic bronchitis is a long-term condition, meaning it has lasted for a minimum of three months. In some cases, it can be lifelong.

You should notice that there are differences between bronchitis caused by a bacterial or viral infection and other causes, such as chemical exposure. However, most cases of bronchitis are caused by viruses, no matter if they are acute or chronic. We talked about Emotional Cause of Lung Problems, What does asthma mean spiritually?

Spiritual Meaning Of Bronchitis

BRONCHITIS (Bronchii bring air to the lungs & take used air back again, therefore, communicate between the inside & outside the world): Needing to get something off your chest. Needing to release & let go. Feeling smothered by someone. Coughing & bringing up mucus rather than sharing your feelings.

Bronchitis is a condition that affects the lungs and can be caused by several factors, including viruses, bacteria, or allergies. The word bronchitis comes from the Greek word bronkhos, which means windpipe or breathing tube. When you have bronchitis, your airways become inflamed and produce excess mucus. This leads to coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, fever, chills and other symptoms.

The spiritual meaning of bronchitis may indicate that you are experiencing a time in your life where things seem out of balance and chaotic. Your body may not be functioning at its highest level because it is trying to fight off an infection or heal itself after an injury or illness. This could also mean that there is something blocking your ability to breathe freely spiritually as well, such as holding onto anger or resentment toward someone else. If this is the case, it may be time for some personal reflection so that you can find peace within yourself and move forward with confidence and purpose in life again!

Bronchitis is a respiratory tract infection that causes inflammation of the mucosal membrane of ​​the bronchi. It is transmitted through contact or by contagion and is caused by viral and bacterial agents.

Bronchitis is a disease that causes inflammation of the bronchi. The bronchi are the airways that branch off from your windpipe and lead to your lungs.

There are two types of bronchitis: acute and chronic. Acute bronchitis is a temporary condition that can last up to three weeks. It’s marked by coughs, sore throats, fevers, chills, and muscle aches. Chronic bronchitis is a long-term disease that can last for months or years. It often causes wheezing, shortness of breath, coughing up mucus, and chest tightness.

Bronchitis can be caused by viruses or bacteria. Viral infections usually cause acute bronchitis; bacterial infections usually cause chronic bronchitis. Viral infections include influenza and colds; bacterial infections include tuberculosis and pneumonia

Bronchitis is the name for the condition that results when the bronchial tubes (the passageways that carry air to your lungs) become inflamed, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Those tubes swell, making it more difficult for air to move through them and making it more challenging to breathe, per the American Academy of Family Physicians.

What Are the Different Types of Bronchitis?

Bronchitis can be either acute or chronic, and both types have different causes, treatments, and outcomes.

Acute Bronchitis The defining symptom of acute bronchitis is a cough that typically develops after a cold or the flu and lasts for about 10 to 14 days (though it may linger for as long as three or more weeks).

Chronic Bronchitis The other type, chronic bronchitis, is a far more serious, incurable lung disease involving periods of persistent coughing and inflammation. The condition causes structural changes to the bronchial tubes; symptoms may flare up and get better and worse over time, but they’ll never completely go away, notes the American Lung Association. (The rest of this article and the related articles focus on acute bronchitis, often just referred to as bronchitis.)

Common Questions & Answers

How long does it take to get over bronchitis?

Acute bronchitis can develop after a cold or the flu and takes anywhere from five days to as many as three weeks to clear up. The other type of bronchitis, chronic bronchitis, is an incurable, long-term disease caused by a structural change to the bronchial system (and isn’t the kind you get as a result of infection). 

Spiritual Meaning of Chesty Cough

Asthma is a chronic disease that inflames and narrows the airways. The inflammation and narrowing make it difficult to breathe.

Asthma symptoms include wheezing, chest tightness and shortness of breath. Severe attacks may require emergency treatment with a breathing tube to help keep the airways open.

The physical cause of asthma is a combination of genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors. The triggers for symptoms can include exercise, allergens (such as pollen), cold air, cigarette smoke and air pollution.

Emotional causes of asthma are stress and anxiety, which can contribute to flare-ups by causing physical stress on the body, leading to inflammation in the lungs that can trigger an asthma attack.

Asthma is a chronic lung condition that causes repeated episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness and coughing. It’s a common disease that affects people of all ages and ethnic groups.

Asthma is a long-term (chronic) condition that affects the airways, which are the tubes that carry air in and out of your lungs. When you breathe in, air passes through the nose or mouth down into the windpipe (trachea), then into smaller and smaller airways called bronchi. The bronchi branch off into even smaller tubes called bronchioles, which carry oxygen to the lungs’ tiny air sacs called alveoli.

When you have asthma, your immune system reacts oversensitively to certain things, such as pollen, dust mites or pet hair. This causes your airways to become narrower and swell up when exposed to what triggers your symptoms (allergens).

Can bronchitis be deadly?

The vast majority of cases of acute bronchitis are not life-threatening. But in rare cases, complications, including pneumonia and respiratory failure, occur, which can be deadly. See your doctor if you cough up blood, feel short of breath, have chest pain, or have a chronic illness (such as heart or lung disease) and notice bronchitis symptoms.

Can I go to school or work with bronchitis?

It depends on how severe the symptoms are. If you have a high fever or symptoms that don’t allow you to participate fully, stay home. In most cases, symptoms will start to improve within the first few days and you’ll feel good enough to go back to work or school when they do.

Emotional Cause of Lung Problems

Emotions are powerful forces that can impact our health. A recent study published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology found that negative emotions such as anxiety and depression can cause significant changes in the respiratory system.

The researchers found that negative emotions cause a decrease in the ability to breathe properly and an increase in sympathetic nervous activity (increased heart rate and blood pressure). This can result in lung problems, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and even lung cancer.

In addition to causing physical changes within your body, negative emotions also affect your immune system. Research has shown that stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol decrease immunity by increasing inflammation throughout the body. This can make you more susceptible to infections such as colds or flu as well as autoimmune diseases like celiac disease or rheumatoid arthritis, where your immune system attacks healthy tissue instead of foreign invaders like viruses or bacteria.

Emotions are powerful, but they can be difficult to understand. They don’t always make sense, and they often appear without warning. Emotions are also contagious; they can spread quickly through a group or family. If you’re experiencing an emotional crisis, you’ll probably notice that your breathing becomes rapid and shallow.

Emotions can have a direct impact on your physical health, especially when it comes to breathing. When you’re upset about something, for example, it’s common to breathe more rapidly and shallowly than usual. This is because emotions activate your sympathetic nervous system (SNS), the part of your nervous system that controls fight-or-flight responses such as increased heart rate and respiratory rate. As a result, you may experience shortness of breath or rapid breathing during an emotional response, particularly if you’re already predisposed to asthma or other lung problems.

Many people with asthma or COPD find that their symptoms are worse when they’re feeling stressed out or anxious. If that’s true for you, try taking some time to relax before bed each night so that you’ll sleep better with fewer interruptions from coughing or wheezing during the night

Do I need antibiotics for bronchitis?

In most cases, no, you do not need antibiotics for bronchitis. If bronchitis is caused by a bacterial infection, antibiotics will help. If bronchitis is caused by a viral infection, antibiotics will not help. Your doctor can determine if bronchitis is bacterial or viral.

How can I treat bronchitis at home?

To manage bronchitis symptoms at home, stay hydrated. Rest. Avoid caffeine, alcohol, and milk products. Try home remedies like spicy foods, mullein tea, vitamin C, zinc, garlic, and over-the-counter saline nasal spray.

Signs and Symptoms of Bronchitis

Because bronchitis is caused by colds and flu viruses, it often begins with symptoms such as a sore throat and runny nose.

Bronchitis results from the infection moving from your nose and throat into the lungs, resulting in the swelling and inflammation in your bronchial tubes that causes coughing, which can be dry, but often produces mucus (sputum) that’s yellowish gray or green in color.

Other common symptoms of bronchitis include

• Fatigue
• Coughing
• Runny or stuffy nose
• Low-grade fever
• Chills
• Body aches
• Headaches
• Production of sputum
• Chest tightness or discomfort

See your doctor if you experience any of these symptoms:

• Wheezing
• Shortness of breath
• Persistent fever that last more than three days or any fever over 100 degrees F (which could be a sign of pneumonia)
• Cough that prevents you from sleeping
• Symptoms that last longer than three weeks
• Blood in your mucus
• Mucus that has a bad smell

If you have a chronic illness, such as heart or lung disease, and suspect you may have bronchitis, it’s also a good idea to your doctor, as you may be at higher risk for complications from bronchitis.

Phlegm Spiritual Meaning

Coughing spiritually means expulsion. When you cough, it is believed to be a spiritual act of releasing things that are no longer needed. The universe deploys this means to free us of things that are not beneficial to our lives.

Now, you might be asking the question, “why do I need to cough?”.

The answer to this is simple.

The reason is that the things you need to let go of are special to you.

Therefore, if the universe uses another sign to communicate with you, it might prove abortive.

Your mind will not pick up those signs, and even if your mind picks them up, it will probably discard them as another message.

All of these are the reasons behind the cough.

It is a forceful release and expulsion of the things you no longer need to hold on to.

The strange part of this is that you will feel the effect of this experience within a couple of days. Those things will leave your life of their own accord.

No matter how hard you try to hold them back, they will just vanish into thin air.

This is why some ancient cultures call coughing a spiritual verdict.

Nothing can be done about it.

Once you cough, expect certain things to leave your life. The only consolation you have is that the things you need to let go of are not beneficial. Therefore, the loss is for your good.

Cough Symbolism

The cough symbol prepares our minds for the inevitable. Because of what happens when you cough, your mind needs to be strong to contain the pressure you will feel.

Losing things you love hurts.

This might be a friend, a thought pattern, a job, and so on. When you begin to lose things like that, your mind needs to be prepared enough to control itself.

Therefore, the cough symbolism and what happens afterward help the mind to be stronger.

The beautiful part is that your mind will remain that way.

The spiritual effect of coughing will help your mind fully grasp what it means to be under pressure and yet in control.

The cough symbolism also tells you to never struggle with what cannot be controlled.

It tells you to accept the inevitable and be strong enough to handle what comes with it.

Spiritual Root of Lung Issues

The lungs are an organ very close to my own heart (literally), having been asthmatic my whole life. This, plus very acute hay fever, is what brought me to homeopathy over 30 years ago. While the hayfever improved very quickly, the asthma has been a longer-term issue and has given me much time to consider the deeper meaning of poor lung function aside from just the physical symptoms.

While the trigger for asthma (and other lung conditions) can appear to be environmental, inherited, gut- or vaccination-related, closer investigation usually reveals a much deeper cause.

The lungs encompass the heart centre and the emotions. The symbolism of many of the symptoms that affect the lungs is breath holding, being in a state of emotional hurt, a sense of giving up and fear of living life fully. The mucous that often accompanies these conditions is a physical manifestation of unshed tears.

Grief is often an underlying component of the constitutional type of the patient with respiratory issues.

If we look back through the family history, not only may we see asthma, bronchitis, hayfever, and emphysema, but we may also see grief. This may be grief over several generations—death, loss, abandonment, orphaned children—all of which I have seen in patients with respiratory problems.

There are so many emotions that relate to the heart centre (as opposed to the physical heart) and the lungs and yes, it’s easy to say that a child has asthma because the parent or grandparent had asthma, but from a homeopathic perspective, we do need to look beyond the physical to find the remedy that addresses each individual situation.

Typically, five patients presenting with asthma would all get a different remedy because each case is unique, regardless of the diagnosis being the same. When we treat a patient with lung symptoms, we are really treating the underlying cause and not the asthma, emphysema, bronchitis, etc. in isolation. Of course, any remedy we select needs to have an affinity for the lungs in order to succeed, and support through winter and for acute flare-ups are part of any management plan for respiratory illness.

If you have children with asthma, it is worth looking not only at the environment they are growing up in but perhaps also at your own childhood environment and the belief systems that have arisen from this experience. With small children, it is often difficult to see what the cause might be without taking into consideration the parents and maybe even grandparents! But frequently, looking back through the generations, we can discover issues somewhere in the family that result in lung symptoms further down the line. This is especially true if these issues are unresolved or suppressed.

Louise Hay¹ identifies lung problems in general as depression or grief, with a fear of taking in life and a feeling of not being worthy of living life fully. Pneumonia may indicate that we are desperate, tired of life and have emotional wounds that are not allowed to heal. Since this is often an acute or end-of-life condition, we can see that it may appear when we’ve had enough! Bronchitis may indicate an inflamed family environment with arguments and raised voices, and here arises another feeling frequently found in lung disease: fear.

Panic attacks creep into this discussion, with hyperventilation or overbreathing being a feature of this condition. Eventually, patients who suffer panic attacks may learn to control the situation but there is always a need to look deeper.

Control and being controlled are major components of respiratory illness, manifested in a range of interesting and creative ways.

Annette Noontil² provides some more ideas on which to ponder. “If you have problems with the lungs, she says, “make sure you are doing things your way!” In other words, don’t let people control you or tell you how to do things; be true to yourself. Lung cancer, from her perspective, arises when a person has been giving in and doing things someone else’s way (often to keep the peace) for so long that they have become destructive.

“Asthma, she says, “is about self-acceptance and, again, doing the things other people think you ‘should do’ to keep them happy or to be noticed”. I would also add here that this can be to gain approval and is another form of control—self-control and being controlled. When you cannot breathe, you are not enjoying life because you are living your life for someone else and always worrying what others think!

Interestingly, many people who present for treatment of asthma fit into this category of being ‘pleasers’ and peacemakers. Sometimes they have been born into families where there is a lot of control and a lot of rules that they are afraid of breaking or high standards that they feel they cannot achieve, leading to feelings of unworthiness (see below). They may spend their lives holding their breath . . .

My old friend Dethlefsen³ always goes deeply into the origins of his ideas and points out there is a connection between the German word ‘atmen’ (to breathe) and ‘mahatma’, which in Hindi refers to a person who has attained perfection. Mahatma means both ‘great soul’ and ‘great breath’. One of the deepest issues with lung symptoms is feeling unworthy or unable to attain perfection, leading to difficulties with the breath and consequently with the soul!

Dethlefsen also says that the breath is the umbilical cord through which life or prana flows. It is the point at which we experience the external world coming in and then have to choose how we deal with it. The breath, a reflex action, stops us from totally cutting ourselves off from the outside world, from making ourselves impenetrable to what we don’t want to experience.

And let us not forget that our lungs are our largest organ of contact with the world. The lungs have an internal surface area of some 70 square metres, while the skin surface actually covers only 1.5 to 2 square metres.

Whereas with the skin we have the choice of touching other people (or things) or leaving them alone, the contact we establish through the lungs, which is indirect and largely unconscious, is actually mandatory. We cannot prevent it, even if people seem so awful as to ‘take our breath away’.

In fact, disease symptoms often get shunted between the lungs and the skin!  A skin symptom that is suppressed (by cortisone and other creams and lotions) can show up as asthma and once the asthma is managed, it moves back onto the skin. Skin symptoms are the lesser of the two problems with that external manifestation, showing a more superficial issue than when symptoms move inwards to the lungs, which are more vital organs. However, the see-sawing between skin and lungs is never good to observe, particularly in a child.

Dethlefsen points out that if we listen to some of the figures of speech around breathing, such as ”can’t get our breath” or “feeling suffocated,” we begin to touch on the theme of freedom, restriction and control.

Difficulty drawing breath is often a sign of anxiety or fear—fear of taking steps towards freedom and independence. 

As a homeopath, I then ask the question “why” and take it a step further to look at what has produced this state. The same link between freedom and breath can be seen in people who emerge from some kind of restriction and take their first breath of fresh air, for at last they can ‘breathe freely’ again, indicating how life could be when we let go of what restricts us.

Dethlefsen paints a beautiful cameo of the asthmatic patient! 

While asthmatics may attempt to shut off the breathing mechanism because of fear or anxiety, another strong factor is a lust for power or feeling of smallness. This lust for power may manifest in allergies, which attempt to control the family and the environment. Sometimes in children, an allergy or intolerance or challenging food choices are the only control a child may feel they have over their lives (unconscious and conscious). The control issues may not actually be with this child and their parents but further back in the ancestral history.

The allergies, with the need for things to be pure, clean, bright and sterile, also bring us further into the psyche with the need to avoid anything that is deep, dark or earthy. The indicated remedies for asthma and allergies frequently have a theme around purity, perfection, cleanliness and the avoidance of germs!

Puffing oneself up (i.e., trying to puff up one’s lungs) is also seen as a sign of a desire for power and of aggression, and after all, aren’t asthmatic symptoms themselves quite aggressive? Some asthmatics are actually better in the mountains, where the air is clean and they can look down on those below. Lovely symbolism and often true!

Dethlefsen poses these self-questions about lung problems:

1. What is it about it that takes my breath away?
2. What is it that I am unwilling to accept?
3. What is it that I am unwilling to give out?
4. What is it I am unwilling to come into contact with?
5. Am I afraid to take a step towards some new freedom?

From a homeopathic perspective, while children tend to be treated with a group of remedies that traditionally strengthen the respiratory system and improve function relative to their family medical history, there is always a need to go deeper, particularly in those cases that don’t resolve easily!

Supplements, oils and herbs can be helpful in these situations, but they rarely, if ever, resolve the problem long-term. Flare-ups of asthma and breathing issues will usually be triggered by an emotional event once treatment has brought a level of health and should be a sign for adults that some inner work needs to be undertaken, as well as support for the lungs physically.

Suppression of asthma with conventional medication pushes the symptoms ever deeper, denying us the opportunity to resolve issues that may go back years and even generations. Asthma and other respiratory complaints really do indicate much deeper issues than just problems with lung function and require skilled and sometimes ongoing treatment, but the results can be outstanding and worth the effort.

Perhaps the question to ask is, “How much do I really want to release myself from restriction to be able to enjoy and breathe in life?”.